# Weird Celebrity Friendships **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 11, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447 "2013-04-11T22:11:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/21 "2013-04-12T12:52:36Z")
Harpo Marx and the entire Algonquin Round Table crew. He was a regular and it always seemed out of character somewhat. In his autobiography he said he would just sit there playing cards and take their money, but others’ comments state that he was quite insightful. Also Harpo Marx and George Bernard Shaw. They were quite good friends I am told. ---
**Author:** ![lost4life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@lost4life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost4life)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/22 "2013-04-12T13:19:36Z")
[Ron Asheton](http://birdcagerecords.com/?p=4500) of **The Stooges** and Larry Fine of **The Three Stooges** had a short but interesting friendship. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/23 "2013-04-12T13:22:14Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > I remember hearing that Axl Rose and George Michael got on well. I thought that odd at the time. > > Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, if you count the latter as a celebrity. > > Churchill liked Stalin better than he expected and claimed in a letter to (I think) Clementine that if he and Stalin could just dine together once a week they’d get on like a house on fire. If politicians count as celebrities, then Bill Clinton & George Bush Sr. became pretty good pals, which may have dismayed members on either side of the red / blue schizm. Apparently Dick Cavitt, the archetypal cerebral intellectual, had a fairly substantive friendship (with benefits!) with Janis Joplin. I guess it could be argued that they were both entertainment figures in the same time period (and Joplin was a frequent guest on his show), but they still seem like such diametrically opposite personality types, it’s hard to think of them spending quality time together. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/24 "2013-04-12T14:10:21Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Groucho Marx was friends with several rockers. In March 1977, he invited Queen to his house and they performed _a capella_ for him. And of course, two of their albums, _A Night at the Opera_ and _A Day at the Races,_ were named for Marx Brothers movies. Groucho wrote a letter approving of the two albums that was used to promote _A Day at the Races_. It was mostly about the album titles, with no mention of the music. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/25 "2013-04-12T14:10:48Z")
> [@dead0man](#): > > Penn Jillette and Glenn Beck Threadwinner. Significantly lowers my respect for Penn (not that I had a lot) and his claim to want to fight “Bullshit!” propagation. Jerry Falwell and Larry Flynt became kinda-sorta friends after all their legal battles. Flynt’s brother made a comment to the effect of ‘it shouldn’t surprise anybody, they’re both hillbillies who are obsessed with money and what people do in bed’. James Lipton of _Inside the Actors Studio_ is a good friend of Loretta Lynn, which seems an odd pairing. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/26 "2013-04-12T14:33:28Z")
Elton John played at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding, and apparently they are, in fact, friends. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/27 "2013-04-12T15:56:02Z")
Brad Paisley and LL Cool J. They’ve recently collaborated on a rather awkward song together. [Here.](http://music.yahoo.com/news/brad-paisley-ll-cool-j-draw-ire-song-225555726.html) Jeesh… ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/28 "2013-04-12T16:01:09Z")
James Carville and Mary Matalin? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/29 "2013-04-12T16:17:16Z")
Going back in time more than a century, the widows of Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S Grant became very chummy, dining/going to theater/vacationing together. It’s not that surprising really: both women were both very well educated women for their time, were both the daughters of Southern gentry, both had experienced roller coaster lives in which they’d been very rich and penniless at various times, both knew what it was like to host affairs at the White House (Varina Davis had often served as official hostess to President Franklin Pierce, whose wife was in mourning for their sons) and both knew what it was like to be poor relations (Julia Grant to her father and in-laws when Grant was broke before the war, Varina to Davis’s rich brother) and to have constant death wishes levied against their husband in the press, both loved theater and reading, and both were very self conscious about their appearance (Julia due to her crossed eyes and Varina due to a complexion so dark she was rumored to be mulatto), and both were seen as traitors to their birthplace for choosing to live in NYC rather than in the “homier” places they grew up and had their families. There must have been some interesting conversations. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/30 "2013-04-12T16:30:32Z")
Ron Jeremy and Tammy Faye Bakker became friends during their stint in reality TV (_The Surreal Life_). ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/31 "2013-04-12T16:42:22Z")
Barbara Walters and Fidel Castro had a very long friendship after she interviewed him in the 60s. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/32 "2013-04-12T17:06:19Z")
Tipper Gore and Gail Zappa Dave Clark and Freddie Mercury (not weird, but I found it mildly surprising for a few moments) ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/33 "2013-04-12T17:09:13Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Elton John played at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding, and apparently they are, in fact, friends. Or the same person. Are there any photos showing Rush dancing with his new wife during Sir Elton’s performance? Or did the groom “have to see a man about an elephant” right before the singer showed up? ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/34 "2013-04-12T17:16:00Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Ron Jeremy and Tammy Faye Bakker became friends during their stint in reality TV (_The Surreal Life_). These are my picks, plus they were super-adorable with one another. I saw an interview Ron did a short time ago, and he mentions Tammy Faye and you can hear in his voice how much he misses her. Shia LaBoeuf and Marilyn Manson were friends for awhile until Shia had a meltdown at a nightclub. I’m just going to quote the incident here: “Shia picked up a water bottle and shot a mouthful of water all over his date’s legs,” says the eyewitness. “Then he put more water in his mouth and started spitting it all over his tablemates, including Marilyn Manson.” Although Manson tried to calm the actor down by offering him a fist bump, LaBeouf only grew more out of control. “All of a sudden, Shia started shouting at his date and getting visibly angry,” adds the eyewitness. He then decided it was time to leave and “lunged” through the very thick crowd. "They tried to hold him back, but he kept struggling through. “Shia had to climb over people and tear himself out of the grasp of various strangers who were trying to keep him from going crazy.” Once he broke free and bolted out the door, his panicked date chased after him. The two never returned. “Marilyn looked shocked and annoyed, but stayed seated,” adds the eyewitness. – NYDailyNews. I love the mental image of Marilyn Manson as the ~oasis of peace in this situation. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/35 "2013-04-12T17:22:40Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > Harpo Marx and the entire Algonquin Round Table crew. He was a regular and it always seemed out of character somewhat. In his autobiography he said he would just sit there playing cards and take their money, but others’ comments state that he was quite insightful. > > Also Harpo Marx and George Bernard Shaw. They were quite good friends I am told. Harpo was witty in real life, as all the brothers were. (Zeppo gets named a lot as the wittiest in real life, although nobody put the lines on paper for us to judge.) The best known Harpo line needs an introduction. Robert Benchley was the drama critic for Life magazine, then a humor mag. As such he wrote a capsule summary of each play that got held over. That wasn’t as big a deal in those days, when even a hit play would last no more than a full season. But Abie’s Irish Rose, a horrible bit of sentimental schmatlz about a Jewish boy and a Catholic girl, ran a record five years or so. Benchley prided himself on coming up with a new way to bash it each week ("Where do the people come from who keep this going? You don’t see them out in the daytime.) but eventually gave up and started a contest for best line. Harpo won. “No worse than a bad cold.” Harpo and Shaw met on the French Riviara, when Harpo was visiting friends in the French ex-pat community. Everybody of any notoriety who had money went to France in those days and the cross-currents fill a dozen books. And Groucho had a correspondence with everybody, most proudly with T. S. Eliot - who wrote him first. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/36 "2013-04-12T17:29:51Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > James Carville and Mary Matalin? Bill Maher and Ann Coulter, he said they got along great so long as the topic wasn’t politics. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/37 "2013-04-12T17:35:15Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > My nomination: Groucho Marx and Alice Cooper > This is why I thought of this Thread. Reading the other Thread, I had to chuckle at all the explanations of why Groucho Marx and Moe Howard wouldn’t have met since there is absolutely no way in hell of positing a hypothetical friendship between Groucho and Alice Cooper- and yet it happened! > I’ve never read about how they met, but their get-togethers often happened when Groucho would call Alice up at 1:00am and tell him to come over. They’d sit and watch T.V./movies on T.V. all night. There are also stories of Groucho loudly announcing to waiters that his rock n roll friend would need some drugs. I saw Alice Cooper on Graham Norton’s UK chat show a few years ago. Graham asked him about that, and Alice’s explanation was that when he hit it big in the 1970s and moved to Hollywood, he deliberately befriended older stars like Groucho. (He might have mentioned other names, but I can’t remember who.) I think he mentioned playing golf with them. ---
**Author:** ![jharvey963](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/54ee81/32.png) [@jharvey963](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jharvey963)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/38 "2013-04-12T18:08:50Z")
Cher and Kathy Griffin appear to be pretty close friends. J. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/39 "2013-04-12T18:19:03Z")
[Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy.](http://articles.latimes.com/1989-07-12/entertainment/ca-3542_1_timothy-leary) ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447/40 "2013-04-12T18:30:36Z")
Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson are pretty close friends. Not that odd, really, given their past projects together (Maverick) but given the toxicity of Gibson in Hollywood over the last several years it’s been interesting to see that Foster has stuck by him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-celebrity-friendships/655447.md?page=3)